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San Carlos Hotel

472 bytes added, 23:30, 15 September 2007
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|style=Mediterranean Revival
|size=Seven stories
|mapcode=<googlemap lat="30.413363" lon="-87.215567" zoom="1716" type="map" width="300" height="288180">
30.413289, -87.216017, Site of the San Carlos Hotel
</googlemap>
Muldon and Bingham leased operation of the hotel to [[George Charles Harvey]] until [[1919]], and then to the Newcomb Hotel Company until [[1922]], when it was sold to lumber magnate [[William B. Harbeson]] and managed by his son-in-law. The new owners soon announced a massive expansion on the north and west sides of the hotel that maintained a consistent facade and added 246 rooms, a ballroom, a new lobby, and space for offices and shops.
The hotel fared well enough during through the Depression years; the seventh floor was retrofitted in [[1931]] to accommodate the [[WCOA]] radio studio, and which began broadcasting there in [[1932]]. In [[1934]] artist [[Joy Apostle]] painted murals in the main lobby and dining room, and it was the headquarters for the [[Wikipedia:New York Giants|New York Giants]] spring training at [[Legion Field]]. The future of the hotel seemed assured, and when ownership passed to the [[Hagler family]] after Harbeson's death, new expansion plans were announced. However, with the advent of roadside motels in the 1950s — conveniently spaced every few miles along the highway, offering air-conditioned rooms at inexpensive rates — the San Carlos could not compete. It entered a period of decline and neglect from which it would not recover.
The San Carlos Hotel ceased operations in [[1982]] and lay vacant for more than a decade. After a proposal by [[Baptist Health Care]] to convert it to retirement apartments failed to materialize, the hotel was demolished in [[1993]]. A new [[United States Courthouse]] was built on the site in [[1998]].
 
==Celebrity guests==
*The Duchess of Windsor
*Jeff Chandler
*Rocky Marciano
*Artie Shaw
*Harry James
*Liberace
*Mary Ann Mobley
*Roger Williams
*Johnny Weissmuller
*Hugh Downs
*Col. Tom Parker
*Charlton Heston
*Robert Stack
*Adlai Stevenson
*George Wallace
*Glenn Miller
*Eleanor Roosevelt
*New York Giants
==Other images==